


Swimming In Circles, Here Around You

by geckoholic



Series: author's favorites [30]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Gen, Mentions of childhood abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 16:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2819120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>For most of your life, you've been hurting the person you wanted to protect so badly.</em> </p><p>A quick glance into Barney Barton's head, set during Hawkeye #19.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swimming In Circles, Here Around You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andibeth82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/gifts).



> I didn't quite manage to dive into your wish for Kate & Jessica bff times, as tempting an idea as that was, so what you get is Barney musing on his relationship with Clint. Ah, the complicated brother feelings none of us signed up for and that we all ended up drowning in regardless... XD 
> 
> Read over by pretty-panther and yohkobennington, thank you both! ♥ All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title is from "Visitors" by Dikta.

For most of your life, you couldn't decide if Clint and you clashed so much because you were too different or too alike. You liked to convince yourself it's the latter, but in all honestly, it's probably the former. He's got a thick head on his shoulders, your brother. Doesn't get swayed as easily as you do, doesn't trim his sails to the wind. Always knew what he wanted, even though it was usually more than he could get. Or so you used to think, before he went and proved you wrong. 

It'd be the comfortable thing to say you always believed in him. But would it be the truth? You did when you were kids. Back then you firmly believed he could do anything he'd set his sights on. You had to. It'd been the only way to imagine him out of that house, out from under the thumb of your father. You knew, from quite an early age, that only one of them would make it out alive in the long run: Clint or Dad. You hoped Clint would make a break for it before you'd have that question answered. Fate took care of their struggle, though, and you've never been more grateful for anything in your whole life. 

The first time you realized that between the two of you, Clint'd been better – the better shot, the better person, the better everything – it hit you hard. It took the wind out of your lungs, anger burning hot in every fiber of your being. That was also when it occurred to you that you inherited more of your father than you ever knew and that, if pressed, you'd pick the same target to lash out at. 

You decided the two of you were better off apart. For his sake, for yours; you're not sure. But the bond between the brothers Barton was never quite made to be severed. You kept orbiting around each other. No, that doesn't sound right – it was you who kept orbiting around him, like the earth around the sun, the moon around the earth. 

You saw him grow – if mostly from a distance – and for what it's worth, you believe in him now. Sad thing is, he doesn't anymore. 

 

***

 

For most of your life, you watched other people take the place by Clint's side that should rightfully be yours. That _was_ yours, until you threw it away. 

Swordsman was the one that stung the most; discarding you in Clint's favor. Even at the time you knew he was right to do so, and that made it worse. It's one thing to love your younger brother so much you want him to succeed. It's something else entirely to see him surpass you, make you feel inferior and useless while you both catch on to the fact he doesn't need you anymore. 

You weren't around to see Captain America take Clint under his wings. That's not the only reason why it was only a dull ache to see how he'd taken your place – at the time, you had been able to fool yourself into believing you were a good person too. That maybe Clint and you were cut from the same cloth after all, that you were worthy of his love and just didn't want it. You were so convinced that you laid your live down to save his. In the end, all you managed to do was make things between you so much worse. 

And then, of course, there's the women in Clint's life. 

Bobbi looks at you like she wants to take you by your unruly mop of hair and bang your head into a wall until you quit breathing. Kate and Jess hardly look at you at all, like you're not even there, and if they do address you it's with the expression of someone who just spotted a cockroach on the wall. Natasha, too, tends to opt for ignoring your continued existence, and you think that might be in everyone's best interest. From what you heard, her protectiveness towards your brother rivals yours. Surpasses it, probably, seeing how she's been so much more successful in the task than you ever were. 

Right now, neither of them is around to pick up the pieces. It's just you. Maybe that's because they don't have a clue how bad it can get, don't know how far he can fall if there's no one around to catch him, trust him to put himself back together on his own. More likely, it's because he cares what they think of him, doesn't want them to bear witness to the mess he made of himself. 

But he still keeps you around, and you don't want to dwell on what it means. 

 

***

 

For most of your life, you've been hurting the person you wanted to protect so badly. 

In the beginning it was born from the best intentions. You wanted to prepare him, steel him. Thought that if he learned to push back against you, he'd be able to push back against everyone else. You yelled at him and you hit him, kept angling for his breaking point to make him retaliate. To this day, you're not sure you ever found it. 

You can't quite recall how much of your brother's blood seeped into your skin over the years. When you cleaned his cuts and bruises, when you added to them yourself, when you tried to save him. Then, later, when you fought him for more selfish reasons, tried to hurt him or kill him or bite him away. The version of yourself that tried to extinguish your brother's light, always so bright it kept you in its shadow, is a stranger to you now, but one you can relate to more than you could bear admitting. 

Your brother has a target on his back, downside of being a hero, and more than once you were the one who aimed an arrow at the center of it. These days, the person who inflicts the most damage on Clint Barton is Clint Barton himself, and it's probably just as well that you resort to trying and punching some sense into him. The most successful method to shake Clint out of his stupor, and it's sense memory you helped instilling. He's been hit so much that it triggers an automatic response, an instinct more powerful than the state of stunned immobility he lost himself in, a system override to ensure his survival and kick him back into action. 

Maybe that should make you sad, but being who you are, instead it makes you proud.


End file.
